Review - The Guest List

The Guest List

by Lucy Foley

Release date 6/2/2020

330 pages

3 out of 5 stars

According to the publisher, "The bride ‧ The plus one ‧ The best man ‧ The wedding planner ‧ The bridesmaid ‧ The body

On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It’s a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed.

But perfection is for plans, and people are all too human. As the champagne is popped and the festivities begin, resentments and petty jealousies begin to mingle with the reminiscences and well wishes. The groomsmen begin the drinking game from their school days. The bridesmaid not-so-accidentally ruins her dress. The bride’s oldest (male) friend gives an uncomfortably caring toast.

And then someone turns up dead. Who didn’t wish the happy couple well? And perhaps more important, why?"

This book starts off with the perfect set-up for drama:  the wedding of minor celebrities on a mysterious Irish island.  What could possibly go wrong?  As we will see, quite a bit.  

On the surface, it seems like this should be a fairy tale occasion.  The bride and groom are both successful and beautiful; their upper crust friends and family are ready to have a great time.  No expense has been spared.  But this story isn't about a fairy tale wedding, it's about the darkness that lies in all of the characters.

This book is narrated through multiple points of view:  the bride, the groom, the best man, the bridesmaid, the wedding planner, a guest, and ultimately, a dead body.  These different voices alternate back and forth, going from earlier in the day, to once chaos unfolds.  Each character plays a specific role, both in the wedding, and in the dark backstory that unfolds for us.

In a way, the island is also used as another character.  We get tons of details, painting the setting out to be both beautiful and eerie, a perfect fit for this dream wedding gone wrong.

My rating for this book needs a bit of explaining - as far as this being a thriller, this book absolutely gets five stars.  The use of alternating voices reveals enough to keep you interested, but not anywhere near enough details that you are able to guess the ending.  As I approached the end of the book, and more and more answers were given, I was literally jumping off of my couch; I could not believe what I was reading and how the author was able to tie everything together! As I've stated on here several times, there is nothing I like better than a totally unforeseen plot twist, and this book delivered like none other.  

The rating was lowered significantly because of the characters.  I hated literally every character in this book.  Pretty much everyone that was introduced, from main characters to fillers, were just completely loathsome; the most positive emotion that I felt for any character was pity.  These characters are meant to be "posh," but their level of entitlement was so outlandish that, for the most part, they crossed believability into caricatures. If the plot had not immediately sucked me in, there's no way I would have gotten too far into this book with just these characters to focus on.

Overall, this book was a three-star read for me.  If you are a plot-driven reader, I think you will really enjoy this book.  If you are someone who is heavily influenced by the characters and need someone to root for, this is probably not the book for you.  For me, I'd say that this book didn't quite live up to the hype it has recently gotten, but I still enjoyed reading it.